barnabeee's blog

Last night I got to meet an incumbent Doctor for the first time ever! And I am still on a high!

The new Doctor Who team started their American invasion last night, with a fantastic event at the NYC branch of the Paley Center for Media called "Who's Next: The New Era of Doctor Who", organized by BBC America. And what a night it was. We got to see, listen to, and meet stars Matt Smith, and Karen Gillan, and all 3 executive producers Steven Moffat, Piers Wenger, and Beth Willis! Oh, and composer Murray Gold was also there!

Doctor Who is on a billboard, on the sides of buses, and there are screenings in major cities throughout the country, featuring Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, and executive producer Steven Moffat. What country is this? It's got to be the UK, right?

WRONG!!!! It's the United States of America!

So what's changed? When the show was relaunched in 2005, and when David Tennant became the Doctor there was nothing. Well, that was when the show was on Sci-Fi. Now it's on BBC America, the show's natural home, and these people just get it! They know that the show can be a huge success - it's already the #1 show on the channel, and want the show to be even bigger!

Doctor Who comics are resurgent in North America right now, thanks to the efforts of IDW Publishing, with their Doctor Who ongoing comic, and their wonderful reprints of Doctor Who Classics which you can order at your local comic book store, amazon.com, or via their website - http://idwpublishing.com

I can finally announce our 3rd Who York event! We will be welcoming none other than the 7th Doctor - Sylvester McCoy - to NYC at Cafe 50 West on Sunday May 16, 2010 from 6.30pm.

Sylvester played the Doctor on BBC1 from 1987-1989 and reprised the role in the 1996 TV movie, when he regenerated into the 8th Doctor, played by Paul McGann! Sylvester is a fabulous entertainer and always full of wonderful stories, so the evening should be a lot of fun! We'll have interviews, signings and more!

Tickets are $20 and are available now at http://whoyork.com. Sylvester will also be signing, your item or ours, for $20.

To make up for having to miss out
on going to meet the man himself at Chicago TARDIS, I settled instead for the
pleasure of listening to the recent Big Finish 8th Doctor audio –
“The Company of Friends”. And a real delight it was too (more details on that
below!). While listening to it, I marveled at the breadth of “friends” (or
companions) that the 8th Doctor has accumulated, across a wide range
of mediums. In fact, all told, it is possible that the 8th Doctor may
have had more companions (15, by my rough count) than any other incarnation!
This is all the more astonishing given the brevity of his television
appearances – about 50-55 minutes of a 90-minute TV movie.

Sorry I've been quiet for a while, but its been a very busy few weeks, with preparations for this week's highly successful first event for Who York - An Evening with Louise Jameson, work, and having a fantastic time this past weekend in Orlando for the inaugural Hurricane Who convention! They've announced year 2 of this convention, and its now a fixture in my calendar, and you would do well to do the same!

A few months ago, you may have read my post regarding Who York, and some of DWNY's exciting plans to create Doctor Who events and conventions in New York City. Well, the first of those plans has now come to fruition, with the announcement of the first Who York Event - A Who York Evening with..... Louise Jameson, who played Leela with the 4th Doctor.

For many Doctor Who fans, especially those of a certain age (and it still upsets me that I can now use that phrase about myself!), the biggest news of the summer - with the exception of the first pictures of the 11th Doctor - has been the return of Tom Baker to the role that made him a national institution and an icon all over the world. Yes, the 4th Doctor is back - in a 5 part audio adventure called Hornet's Nest from BBC Audio. It's been almost 30 years since the 4th Doctor had a new adventure. 30 years since those wonderful warm and throaty tones have been part of a new Doctor Who story.

We are now less than 2 months away from a brand new convention on the East Coast - Hurricane Who, in Orlando, Florida! It takes place at the Ramada Convention Center from Friday October 30th through Sunday November 1st, with a launch party on Thursday October 29th at the Cricketer’s Arms Pub. So why aren’t you going? Are you on the fence? If so, then this is the blog for you! Here are 10 reasons that you really should be heading to Florida for HURRICANE WHO!!!!!

The snap answer to this question is, of course, “There’s no such thing as too much ‘Doctor Who’”. But is that really the case? Have we reached the point where keeping up with Doctor Who is such a full-time job, that we don’t have time for our real full-time jobs or any other aspect of life?

So on listening to Doctor Who: Podshock episode 159, the story was once again told of Gary Russell and his DWNY mug! Or rather the lack thereof! And I feel compelled to set the record straight! And where better than my blog on this very website!

I started running the Doctor Who New York (DWNY) group (on the web at http://dwny.org) last year, taking it over from a very dear friend who had built up the group since its inception in 2005, but for whom work was starting to take up too much time to keep it all going. Prior to this "regeneration", Gary had joined us at one of our meetups – the viewing of the 2007 Christmas Special Voyage of the Damned”. Before I took over, for those of you following along at home!

While listening to TARDIS Tara’s semi-live Comic-Con reports Podshock Episode 157, and reading and hearing various other reports on the Doctor Who panel, one comment really stood out in my mind. That was Julie Gardner’s comment on what made her fall in love with Doctor Who. She reported that the first story that Russell showed her when they started work on the series was the Season 17 story “City of Death”, and from that moment she said she has been a confirmed fan.

Thanks for the welcome to the blog so far! This installment is a little bit more newsy than opinion - but rest assured I have more opinions to come!

Listeners to Podshock episode 157 will hear Jarrod Cooper, the chairman of the Hurricane Who convention (http://hurricanewho.com) taking place in Orlando, Florida from Friday October 30 - Sunday November 1 2009, mention a new endeavour taking place in New York City associated with DWNY - Who York.

Plans are still being made and will be revealed here shortly, but our first event is expected to be in November, 2009. If you bookmark http://whoyork.com you will see that we are already putting some preparations in place.

Please Note: There will be spoilers in this blog entry if you haven't seen the UK press in the last week, or the reports out of San Diego Comic-Con.

The last week has been a fantastic time to be a Doctor Who fan - and the proof of how great this show is, could be seen in the thousands of screaming fans in San Diego yesterday morning, as the celebrated the coming end of an era - And what a ride that ending looks like its going to be. Frights on Mars with water and who knows what else, and then "The End of Time" itself, with Wilf, Donna, the Master, Timothy Dalton and the last days of Planet Earth!!!! It all looks very dark indeed! Whatever happened to Russell's promise not to scare the kids on Christmas Day??!!!!